


the coward does it with a kiss

by Sour_Idealist



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Discussions of violence, Gen, Murphy wielding Amoracchius, Offscreen Violence, author is a little frigging frustrated with the canon, vague timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:14:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10046237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: “I didn’t,” she said. “Believe me, I don’t give a damn what you did to the warlock. He had it coming. But nobody else in that cabin had a part in that. It’s… pretty ugly in there, Harry.”“Okay,” I said, and exhaled. “Okay. No more blood-shrapnel around the innocent mortals. Got it.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Implies a sexual/romantic relationship between Harry and Murphy at at least one point in time, but this is not really a Murphy/Harry story.

I was on my knees, still trying to catch my breath, when I heard footsteps crunching over the November frost.

“Murph, that better be you,” I said, and looked up.

“It is,” Murphy said, around the edge of the biggest cabin in the little vacationer’s resort. She had mud and leaves in her hair, and Amoracchius shone bare and clean in her hand. Judging by the blood smeared on her pants and the scrape on her knuckles, it was clean because she’d cleaned it. “You all right there?”

“Just tired,” I said.

“Yeah. I got a look in there,” she says, jerking her head at the house. “What did you do to them?”

I grinned up at her. “Froze the big warlock’s blood in his veins and used it as shrapnel to take out the rest of them. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Sure is effective,” she said, looking away from me. “Turned the snipers into hamburger.”

“Yeah.” I grimaced, rolling my shoulders. “They were turning the place into a shooting gallery.”

“So you killed them.” She was coming closer, Amoracchius still in one hand; her other was hooked into her belt, and she was chewing at her lip.

“I mean, it wasn’t my favorite thing to do,” I said, “but they _were_ trying to kill me.”

“Not very effectively,” she said. “Even headshots won’t do much to you lately, right?”

“I mean, they _hurt,_ ” I said, rubbing the back of my head. “And it’s not a risk I like to take.”

“So, shrapnel blood,” she said.

“New trick,” I said. “I think I did something to my ankle, though.”

“Only you, Dresden,” she said, shaking her head. “You turn a man’s blood to frozen shrapnel and then you break your ankle.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. “Can you help me up?”

She took a few more steps towards me, still chewing on her lip. “Harry,” she said. “They were just humans. I don’t even think they knew they were protecting a warlock.”

“He killed three children, Murphy!” I protested. “Or did you forget that?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “Believe me, I don’t give a damn what you did to the warlock. He had it coming. But nobody else in that cabin had a part in that. It’s… pretty ugly in there, Harry.”

“Okay,” I said, and exhaled. “Okay. No more blood-shrapnel around the innocent mortals. Got it.”

“Yeah,” she said, quiet. “Harry. Look. You’ve always been… reckless. Careless. Tell me, was it really the best way you had to deal with them? Or were you just not thinking about it?”

“They were criminals!”

“I’m not convinced they weren’t legitimate bodyguards,” she said slowly, “and even if they weren’t, they were normal human toughs, currently hired to protect someone with money, and none of them had a snowball’s chance against you, Harry. You are not a jury of their peers in any sense.”

“I said okay! No more blood shrapnel. I’ll be more careful, okay?”

“No, Harry,” she said. “It kind of isn’t. Look. I need you to tell me why you did it, okay? I need to know what you were thinking. Did you not realize they were mortal? Did you forget they couldn’t do much to you?”

“Aw, come on, Murph,” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t – don’t ask me that. Come on.”

“I’m asking you,” she said. “Dresden. Harry. Tell me why you did it. Tell me what you were thinking.”

I was still kneeling in front of her, on the cold leaves. I stared at them, at the traces of frost encroaching on the brown; I couldn’t look at her. “I wasn’t,” I said, softly. “I didn’t care. It was a fight, and I could win it, and I did. The Winter got away from me.”

“I thought you said Mab couldn’t change who you are.” I’d told her that, once, in the dark of her bedroom: whispered it into the bare curve of her shoulder, buried my face in the stubble of her hair.

I didn’t have an answer for her.

“Harry,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

And then there was a strange sharp pressure at the back of my ribs, and I couldn’t breathe. And when I looked down, Amoracchius was sticking out the front of my duster, shining underneath the thick dark red.

The pain didn’t set in until she pulled the sword out, and I swayed and tried to catch my breath. I heard the sword hit the ground, and then she caught me, turning me over until I could see her. Her eyes were wet and shining.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she said. “I’ve been afraid of this since you gave me Amoracchius. I think I knew what it was for. I knew it would be something like this. This is the line, Harry – they couldn’t do a damn thing to you and you killed them because you could, and this is what we used to _fight_ together, this is –” She cut off, and I could feel her shudder underneath me. Her voice was steadier when she said, again, “I’m sorry. This is it, Harry. It had to be.”

“Stupid way to kill a wizard,” I said, as well as I could. My mouth was starting to feel kind of numb. “Plenty… of time…”

“Yeah,” she says, pushing her hand through the smears of blood on the front of my coat. “I know. Plenty of time for you to get a death curse out. Seemed only fair.”

Laughing felt like her pulling the sword out again; I did it anyway. “Dammit, Karrin,” I said. “This _hurts._ Quick doesn’t hurt.”

“It won’t for much longer,” she said. “Go on. Finish it.” Her jaw stuck out, and she kept running her fingers over the sucking, bloody wound. The blood coated the places between her fingers; she’d gotten it smeared across her palms. “Go on.”

“Okay.” I took a deep, rattling breath, and sucked in every scrap of power I could: Murphy and Molly and Mouse, Maggie and Charity and Michael, Thomas and Justine and Ebenezar and Mac, and every fading scrap of Winter. Everything I had picked up in a life full of magic, and then I blew out of me, wrapping it around her. I didn’t know if this would work, but I didn’t see why it wouldn’t.

“Be well, Murph,” I said, and closed my eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde.


End file.
